I am a bit obsessed with lights, especially any type of LED lighting. It is a running joke in my family that you could sell me anything if you throw some lights on it. When I seen these camping buckets with LED light, my heart exploded. Camps and lighting all in one!
These are probably one of the easiest camping decorations you can get. To start, you need a plain white 5-gallon bucket with a lid. Around me, the best place to purchase these are at Wal-Mart but you do have to buy the bucket and lid separately.
Again, I use my Cricut for the vinyl on it but you could paint these as well. Many people personalize these buckets with their last name and place them in front of their campers. Because camping is such a hit right now, there is no shortage of ideas for your buckets. You can buy designs on Etsy or similar sights, or simply create your own design.
These are the lights that I chose to use. They are sturdy and each light comes with its own remote. The colors are bright and vibrant in the buckets and shine bright at night. They are also submersible which means if you are stuck with your bucket outside during a sudden downpour, that it will still work! Some people I have seen choose to use double-sided sticky tape to stick their lights right in the middle of the bucket. I personally do not do this just because I like the ease of just grabbing the light to be able to change the battery and I just sit mine out on the lawn, so the light will not move around anyway.
These buckets are a growing trend amongst people who enjoy camping. If that is you, I believe you need one of these!
If you read my first Kalahari post, you will see that I mentioned how much Kinley adores Kalahari. Naturally, when given a choice between a birthday party or a trip to Kalahari, we all know what she chose……Kalahari.
This time around, there were not any Groupon deals available so I knew I had to get a little more tactful in money saving search. I had been following a group on Facebook that books groups of rooms and then you can reserve a room in their block at a discounted price. There are only select dates available but that is ok because Kinley was willing to go at any time. The room was not quite as cheap as I managed to get it last time but not horrible. The Nomad room with all the taxes and fees included came to $202. This one however did not come with any freebies like we received last trip.
The amazing view from our balcony
At check in, our room was not ready, which we were prepared for as we were early but we were able to access the water park. We were supposed to receive our room number by text by 4pm and our bracelets would unlock the door. Easy enough.
This was Kinley's first trip during summer, which meant her first experience with the outdoor water activities, and boy was she excited! We also brought our go-pro this time, which allows me to share some great waterslide videos with you.
We opted out of the locker rental this time to save some money and just brought the necessities with us. This saved us $25. We also remembered to bring our souvenir cup from our last trip, which allowed drinks at a much-discounted rate.
We did receive a bonus, if you will this trip. We never received the text with our room number by 4pm like we had been told. Around 5pm, my husband finally went up to ask and it seemed they had forgotten about us by mistake. To make up for it, they gifted him $50 in arcade tokens. In no way should you ever expect that, but it was a nice bonus for us on this trip and allowed Kinley to win more toys from the crane machines she loves so well.
Here is a breakdown of our spending this trip.
Room for 1 night $202
Snacks from candy shop $6
Late night pizza hubby had to have $17
Dinner in waterpark $31
Breakfast $14
Lunch in waterpark $22
Grand total of $292, which actually brings us in $44 cheaper than our last visit.
This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Read my full disclosure policy.
Fall is one of my absolute favorite times. I love the weather, the colors, the smells, and the clothing required (in Michigan anyway). I came across this cute little scarecrow craft that you could use to decorate your home or workplace.
The bottles you can get from anywhere that sells bottles. As long as they are in this shape, this will work. I am thinking of experimenting with a mason jar and if I do, I will make sure to share.
I bought my scarecrow faces off Etsy and cut them from vinyl with my Cricut machine. You could paint them if you do not have a die cut machine. I do not have the steadiest of hands so that does not always turn out well for me.
I have done some sets with lights and some without. I put the lights in first when using them. I bought them from Amazon and they were a great deal.
You will then fill them as much or little as desired with the straw material.
Then decorate them however you would like. I chose to do burlap around the top of both with different types of ribbon wrapped around. Some I made "hair" hang down and others I gave bow ties. This is where you can completely personalize them. The ones with the lights I just tucked them in the burlap with the on and off switch easily available.
I made them in sets of a boy and a girl but you could even create little families with different size bottles. I plan to bring mine to work to bring the fall spirit to my desk.
This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Read my full disclosure policy.
Everyone wants to be a professional crafter, right? Unfortunately, most crafts do not profit enough money to quit your day job. Although it can be a profitable side business if you work it right. Now I am just in the beginning stages of this process so I am learning right along with you all.
I started crafting not to make money, but because it is a passion of mine. I love all kinds of arts and crafts and always have. However, with some family illnesses that have come up, medical bills have started to surpass the income that I need to pay them. So I thought, eh let's try this. My husband has always been into fishing so I made a vinyl decal for his truck. He liked it so much that he posted on a sportsman forum and other people wanted to order one as well. Of course, most forums do not want random people advertising and selling items on their forums without permission. After chatting with the forum owner, he let us know that he was in need of a person or company to provide his forum decals and after hearing our story, agreed that we could get the job!
Here came the fun part. While I had the idea, I had no idea how to actually make this work. Tons of research went into this as I was just starting, I didn't want to invest a lot of money without knowing if this thing would flop or not. I went with a free storefront on www.freewebstore.com. The reason I made this choice is A)the unknowns mentioned above and B) I didn't need people to be able to find my store by an internet search as the forum would link to the store right on it. Of course I had to create the designs and keep them as simple as possible as we had to be prepared for mass production if this took off. The most time consuming part was building the store. I clearly had no idea how much work this would be.
While it has not been a get rich quick project, it has not been a flop either and each day I am learning as I go. I am tweaking the store each day, switching up products and vendors. So far this has been my favorite transfer tape by far. It's not what I use for my own crafts at home because I can work with less tacky transfer tape. However, I fully believe when you are sending out a finished decal product and expecting the customer to be able to apply it, you need to use high quality transfer tape.
I like to think of myself as the queen of side hustles. I have always been a hard, dedicated worker who will do anything to make ends meet. This started back in my teens, as I was a teen mom and gave birth to my first daughter at the age of 17. I had already been working at McDonald's throughout high school. It was a job I actually thoroughly enjoyed but I was at the ceiling paygrade wise and the next step up required open availability which I could not do with a baby. I soon realized that I needed to do more. I took a part time job at a daycare as well, as it offered discounted rates for childcare. Then I added one to two nights a week working coat check at a local bar. So now I was at 3 jobs with a baby. Eventually I added college into the mix and earned my associates degree. With this, I was able to earn a better paying job....for a while anyway. One job, one income, is just not enough to raise a child on. Through out the years, here are a few of the side gigs I have worked to help make ends meet.
Line dance instructor 1 to 2 times per week for many years
Zumba instructor. I taught Zumba at my daughters dance studio in exchange for her dance class tuition.
Beachbody coach. This one didn't work well for me as most of my circle of friends could not afford the products.
Paparazzi consultant. This was an ok gig if you could direct people to purchase from your online shop.
Legging consultant. I sold for many vendors and again this is only profitable if you can direct people to you sites. Keeping inventory is not very profitable. I did do a couple vendor shows with this.
Shipt shopper. I loved this one and am not sure why anyone would not want to do it if given the opportunity. It is very flexible.
Crafts. This is my passion but you can't make enough to get a large profit margin.
Blogging. My newest trial. This blog here. To be continued on this gig
As much as I love the company I work for, I want to be my own boss and make my own hours. I am always game for any opportunity that may give me a chance. never be afraid to try something new. Think outside of the box on how to get what you need or where you want to be. If you never take a chance, you will never see a change.
Kalahari, in Sandusky, is one of Kinley's favorite places in the whole world. So when I saw a Groupon come through for it, I had to jump at the deal. If you have ever been to Kalahari, you know how expensive it can be. We paid $189 and received at check in, a $100 arcade card. This was an amazing deal. Would we normally spend $100 at the arcade? No, I am sure not but in this case, why would I pass it up?
Upon check in, we were told that we had been upgraded to a Nomad room. I was so excited as I have never been upgraded at any hotel, ever. It wasn't a grand upgrade by any means, but the room did have 2 beds, plus a pull out sleeper sofa, a fireplace, and a walkout balcony overlooking the outside attractions. Seeing as it is winter, there wasn't much going on out there but it was still a nice feature. Another awesome bonus this trip was that our room was ready early, when we arrived at noon. We were definitely not expecting this but it did make life easier.
After settling our luggage,we went straight to the water park. Kinley was so excited as she is now officially over 48 inches so she could ride just about everything. She likes to choose the lazy river first to ease her way into things and we definitely weren't complaining. From there we headed to Victoria Falls as that has always been a family favorite. We never ride this without constant giggling. This year Kinley really took to the wave pool. After months of swimming lessons, she is quite the water bug and really enjoyed just having somewhere to just swim. She is a bit overconfident I must say and the first time the waves came, it was quite an eye-opening experience for her.
After testing out every water attraction, we decided we were hungry and went to get some dinner at the buffet. The price tag carries a bit of a sticker shock for most at first but when comparing options, it really is reasonably priced. For comparison, our dinner bill came in at $55 while lunch the next day at the water park was $44 and included much fewer options. I tried lots of new foods at the buffet , just because I could and found quite a bit of things I liked.
We also spent time in the arcade with our "free" $100 arcade card. Each game costs a different amount of points so some games were more of a value than others. However, any parent who has ever been to Chuck E. Cheese or some place similar knows, the prizes for tickets are pretty lackluster and usually not worth it. We decided to try our luck on the numerous crane machines. Not to toot my own horn but I am pretty good at them and they actually had some nice prizes in them. Kinley walked away with 7 prizes, including a Cutetito and a Spongebob mashem, both of which she was really excited about and were worth more than any prize she could have won with tickets in the range of money we had to spend.
The next morning we packed up our stuff and handed it off to concierge. They will hold your luggage until you are ready to leave. We try to get the most bang for our buck so we always use the water park on departure day. This day was a learning experience for me. I saw many people who had brought their own food into the water park. I did not know this was allowed but boy could that save you some money. I also learned that you could buy a souvenir cup and keep refilling it with pop or the frozen slushes. How had I been there so many ties and not known these tidbits of info, I have no idea. It will definitely change things for our next visit though.
Here is a breakdown of our overall spending:
Room for 1 night through groupon-$189 with $100 arcade card
Locker on the 1st day- $25
Snacks from candy shop- $7
Breakfast- $16
Dinner at the buffet $55
Lunch in water park $44
For a grand total of $336. Not bad at all for a one night stay at Kalahari. We will be returning for sure!
Thank you so much for stopping in. My name is Tiffany and I have a wonderful husband named Derek and two beautiful daughters Kayla (19) and Kinley (5).
I grew up pretty mid-class. I mean, we always had food and clothes and a roof over our head but not a ton of extras. My parents didn't believe in buying name brand items. All of my clothes came from Kmart, where my mom worked. Once I got to middle school, I started saving my own allowance and was able to buy my first pair of Nike shoes in 6th grade. I learned very young how expensive things were and how to get the most bang for my buck. This has not changed throughout my life.
I want my kids to experience all that life has to offer, and we know some of those things are pretty expensive. We make sacrifices in our house to get what we want. Some of that started with me thinking, hey I can make something similar to that $50 item at the store for much less.
In this blog, I will share some of experiences we are able to afford,as well as how to make some great items all on a budget. I thank you again for visiting. Please come back often!
